Throughout the world, the most important societal institutions — including business, government, health care, the arts and education — have embarked on an extraordinary journey into the future. Information technology (IT) is taking us there.
Universities are relatively conservative institutions and have not ordinarily been among the leaders in adapting to change. But IT is a powerful force for change in higher education, and UCLA is taking a leadership role in responding to that imperative. One of my goals is to keep UCLA at the forefront of the discussion on the technology revolution: to be a leader in understanding and propelling this phenomenon.
Information technology affects UCLA and other universities in a number of very important ways. IT is changing what is taught, and how and where it is taught. It is transforming student life. And it is revolutionizing both the research agenda and the research process.
Keeping up with advances in IT means that the university's infrastructure — physical facilities such as classrooms, libraries, laboratories, offices and hospitals — must be properly configured and equipped for digital communications and information processing. Infrastructure and connectivity are expensive, and we must invest wisely in order to meet our current and future needs.
Students today are connected as never before with each other, with their teachers and with the world. A pioneer in making IT an integral part of the undergraduate experience, UCLA was the first university to provide every undergraduate student with a personalized home page linked to a Web site for every course in which he or she is enrolled. From their home pages, which essentially are dynamic portals, UCLA students can access a wealth of information. They can send e-mail, get their test scores and grades, find a library book, read the student newspaper, monitor their degree progress, consult an academic counselor and keep up with the activities of their favorite clubs — all without leaving their residence halls.
Today’s communication technologies can link up teachers and students in any location, at any time of day. This leads us to some obvious questions: Do we need classrooms at all? Why go to a campus when you can study online? The pros and cons of distance learning will be debated for many years to come. But this approach, at least for now, is best suited to nontraditional students — those who already are employed, who reside a great distance from a campus or who need very specific kinds of instruction. And no matter how sophisticated the technology becomes, residential research universities — academic communities engaged in teaching, research and public service — will continue to serve essential functions. They will, however, do some things quite differently than in the past.
Along with teaching, those things include scholarship and research. Universities perform much of the basic research that enables development of new digital technologies. Computer scientists, electrical engineers and other scholars at UCLA have contributed to some of the most important discoveries in this field.
In addition to creating information technologies, universities have an obligation to help interpret their significance for our society. A major step in that direction has been taken by the UCLA Center for Communication Policy, which recently released The UCLA Internet Report: Surveying the Digital Future.
The amount of human knowledge is growing at an amazing rate, and the rapid advance of IT is a major factor in the unprecedented expansion of information and data. As the knowledge base grows, so does the complexity of the problems that challenge our society, with the result that the traditional categories of knowledge are becoming less useful. At universities, scholars from different fields who rarely, if ever, talked to each other in the past now often work together to find the best possible approach to a problem. This multidisciplinary crossover is accompanied by a proliferation of specialized fields and subfields. For instance, dozens of UCLA scholars are engaged in the emerging field of nanoscience, which involves the study, engineering and manufacture of very small things, on the scale of a billionth of a meter. Nanoscience builds upon the vital and strategic role of IT in managing and using data in astounding new ways.
Our society has moved from the Industrial Age to the Information Age. In the Industrial Age, the harnessing of steam and electricity and the capabilities for mass production and rapid transportation opened up new vistas and opportunities, and conferred power. In the Information Age, knowledge is power.
Today, knowledge accounts for a large part of an organization’s value. This means that knowledge workers — people who can add to the intellectual capital and, thus, the value of their companies — are urgently needed. Companies and organizations of every kind need employees who can analyze problems and think critically to devise an appropriate course of action. And universities must respond to this need.
In the rapidly changing world of the Information Age, the specific knowledge acquired at a university is not sufficient preparation for the entire duration of a career. So, what can universities do to ensure that our students graduate well-prepared for the future, with the knowledge they need most?
Certainly our students must be acquainted with the new technologies, and be capable of leading and excelling in a global, interconnected society. Those without access to IT will fall behind. To that end, we must make science and mathematics compelling subjects — starting long before students arrive at the university. At the same time, we must continue to value the arts, the humanities and the social sciences. A broad-based education, balancing depth and breadth of knowledge, still provides the best preparation for life.
There is no question that information technology is a prodigious force for change in higher education. It is also fair to say that higher education prepares students to understand and manage change in their own lives. As John F. Kennedy once said: “Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or the present are certain to miss the future.”
